Now, you know I wouldn’t actually force you to upgrade to Firmware 3.1.3, but BigBoss has released a Tweak which can be downloaded from Cydia which actually makes iTunes and any app that (well most) require 3.1.3 to think that your iDevice actually has 3.1.3!

It’s a small Tweak (1KB if that) and it just modifies one of the system files that holds the iDevices current firmware information and can easily be installed if and when you do actually want to upgrade to 3.1.3 (For some bizaaaarrre reason). Just thought I would share! I like it!

UPDATE: BigBoss has reported that the Firmware 3.1.3 had an uninstall bug! But has released another application called Firmware 3.1.3 App which allows you to toggle between 3.1.2 and 3.1.3! Find it in the System Section of Cydia!

Hey guys, so for the past few days i’ve been playing with qTweeter, an application created by Efiko Software. It is a very easy and fast way to update your facebok status or post a tweet to twitter.

The trial version can be downloaded from the Cydia Store and costs $4.99 if you want to go for the full version as the trial only gives you a maximum of 20 tweets or status updates.

Usage is very simple. Simply slide down from the status bar and the qTweeter dialogue box will drop down and allow you to type in a message, or, using the icons across the top, you can tweet your currently playing song, a photo or your map location (with support for geotagging).

You can attach as many accounts to the program as you like, so if you like to tweet, I would recommend this program!

Click here for Efiko Software website!

Saurik, the creator of Cydia, has released a new APT update which greatly improves Cydia’s speed.

We all know that Cydia is pretty damn slow so this update is warmly welcomes by myself. Saurik announced it via his Twitter saying :

I also uploaded a new version of APT I’ve been working on: it has an optimized cache generator and more error tolerant repository parsing

The update should come up automatically in your Cydia so update it and enjoy the new speediness of Cydia!

A new great app has hit Cydia called iNoRotate. It allows you to disable rotation (ie the accelerometer) on your iPhone and unlike the NoRotation SBSettings toggle (which is great none the less) allows you to disable it only in certain apps.

It gives you the options of disabling it in all applications, or just SMS, Mail, Safari, Notes or Calender. Surprisingly to me they don’t offer an option to disable it on the Music application.

App Description:

iNoRotate disables your rotation ability when enabled. You can choose from: All Applications, SMS App, Mail App, Notes App, Safari App, and Contacts app

You can get the iNoRotate application off the BigBoss repository on Cydia for free.

But now with this new application called PkgBackup, you can backup and then restore all your Cydia applications. Here is a guide demonstrating how to do it:

(All credit for the guide goes to iClarified):

Step One
Press to launch Cydia from your iPhone Springboard

Step Two
Press to select Sections from the tabs at the bottom of the screen

Step Three
Press to select Utilities from the list of Sections

Step Four
Press to select PkgBackup from the list of Packages

Step Five
Press to Purchase PkgBackup from the Cydia Store for $3.49. Once you have entered your payment information you will be returned to the package information view where you can now press the Install button at the top right of the screen.

Step Six
Press the Confirm button to begin your installation.

Step Seven
Once installation has completed successfully press the large Return to Cydia button.

Step Eight
Press the Home button to return to your Springboard then launch the newly installed PkgBackup application.

Step Nine
PkgBackup will begin by scanning all your installed packages. Press the blue circular arrow button to view the list of active packages.

Step Ten
Press to select an application from the list. From the package details window you can enable or disable backup of that particular package.

Step Eleven
From the main screen you can turn the Include Layout switch to ON if you would like to save your Springboard layout. Next, press the Backup button to begin backing up your application list.

Step Twelve
Once Pkgbackup is finished it will prompt you to sync with iTunes. Press the large OK button then connect your iPhone to iTunes and perform the sync. Make sure that iTunes successfully completes a backup during the sync process.

Step Thirteen
If your firmware has been restored and you have lost your Cydia applications the first step is to restore the backup we just made in iTunes.

To do this, either Ctrl-Click or Right-Click on the iPhone in the list of devices in iTunes. Select Restore Backup from the popup menu that appears.

Chose the backup you would like to restore to from the list then click the Restore button.

Step Fourteen
Once the backup has been successfully restored to the iPhone you will need to follow Steps One through Eight again to install and launch PkgBackup.

Step Fifteen
Notice PkgBackup will detect how many packages you have installed and how many packages are available for installation from your previous backup.

Step Sixteen
Press the blue circular button to see the packages from your previous backup. You can select an individual package to see its details and set whether or not it will be included in a Restore.

Step Seventeen
Press the Restore button to begin installing all your missing applications.

Step Eighteen
Once its done installing your applications PkgBackup will ask you to reboot. Press the Reboot button.

Step Nineteen
Once your iPhone restarts you will have all your applications back!

As I said, you can ONLY do this if you click make my life easier on Cydia before yesterday which allows Cydia to backup your SHSH file. You should see this when you launch Cydia.

To downgrade your firmware you will need to change a line in the hosts for Cydia redirecting iTunes to download the signature file from Saurik’s server rather than Apple’s.

Guides are courtosy of ihackintosh.com:

How to Edit and Save Hosts file in Windows

• Open Notepad with Administrative privileges by clicking Start, All Programs,Accessories, and thenright-click Notepad and select to open as Administrator.

• Now that Notepad is open with Administrative privileges browse to (C:WindowsSystem32driversetc) in Notepad and open the hosts file, and add the following entry to the bottom of the file.
  

  74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com

Now you navigate to files menu and save the hosts file. By doing this you changed the communication server, and then we will ensure that iTunes checks the firmware on the server rather than opens Saurik toApple! Because your ECID is on that server, the verification will fail and restore the previous version will be done without too many problems!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

How to Edit and Save Hosts file in Mac OS X

• Navigate to /etc and look for hosts file, right click on hosts file and open with Text Edit, and add the following entry to the bottom of the file.

74.208.10.249   gs.apple.com

• Now save the file and click on Save As.
• Because Text Editor can’t save your system files, here comes the tricky part, in save as windows use the following settings. Or take a close look at the following image.

1. In Where locate to Desktop
2. Uncheck the “ If no extension is provide, use .txt “ and then press the save button.

• A host file will be appear on your Desktop, just drag and drop to /etc and follow the onscreen instructions.
• Press the Replace and enter your Password

By doing this you changed the communication server, and then we will ensure that iTunes checks the firmware on the server rather than opens Saurik to Apple! Because your ECID is on that server, the verification will fail and restore the previous version will be done without too many problems!

You will now be able to downgrade your device to OS 3.1.2 from OS 3.1.3.

Simply place your device into DFU mode and click SHIFT+RESTORE, select your firmware file and you will be downgraded.

If you receive 1011, 1013, 1015 errors simply ignore them as your firmare is still properly installed. Just go ahead to Blackra1n or Redsn0w and jailbreak your device.

If you receive 1601, 1602, 1600 errors, you will need to put your device into DFU mode once again and try install the firmware once again.

The creators have gone ahead and released a new version of the device including some new features and bug fixes (basically EVERY error on version one has been resolved).

(video in French but easy to understand)

You can download the newest version below.

Click to download: Cyder 2 (1928)

After Apple banned Google Voice from the AppStore causing much controversy as it was believed AT&T influenced Apple’s decision on the matter, the developers have been out to get revenge and what better way to get revenge for being banned on the AppStore than releasing it onto Cydia. And that’s exactly what they did.

As the application wasn’t going to be a free application on the AppStore, it isn’t a surprise that the application was released onto the Cydia store for $1.99.

Description:

GV Mobile brings the power of Google Voice to your iPhone. This is not a VoIP/SIP dialer! **You must already have a Google Voice account.**

If you don’t have an account, see the following web site for information on how to get notified once it’s available: Google Voice invites.

GV Mobile allows users of Google Voice to:

• Dial numbers via the iPhone address book or typing on the keypad
• dial numbers via the iPhone address book or typing on the keypad
• dial from your in-app favorites
• full SMS support (view historic, reply, send new) with landscape keyboard support
• retrieve and delete recent call history
• playback and delete voicemails
• view voicemail transcriptions
• take calls from your different call forwarding phones (phone other than your iPhone)
• enable or disable the phones that Google Voice forwards calls to
• add, edit, or delete phones that Google Voice forwards call to
• offline dial support – no connection to the internet? No problem!
• enable or disable do not disturb
• change call screening and call presentation settings
• toggle between multiple accounts with ease!
• variety of data sync methods

How does GV Mobile work?

GV Mobile initiates a secure connection with Google Voice and sends a command to do various tasks(call, send sms, etc). GV Mobile communicates only with Google Voice, no one else.

Please note that GV Mobile relies heavily on the use of an internet connection (3G, EDGE, Wifi, etc).

If your internet connection is shady a best, this app may not function properly. By using GV Mobile, you understand that I am not liable for data charges you may incur.

Any drastic changes on Google’s end may make GV Mobile inoperable. With that said, I plan on fully supporting this app to ensure it functions if changes occur.

Screenshots:

You can find GV Mobile + on Cydia. Search for it and you will find it.

A new paid application called iRemix has been released onto Cydia which adds lots of new features to the iPod.app on the iPhone and iPod Touch. The features include Lyric searching, Favorites, Song Info and Bookmarks.

Favorites:

Your favorite songs, artists, albums and playlists are now one touch away. No more endless scrolling and searching. Instantly access them in all their cover art glory. Create up to 5 pages of your favorites and scroll through them springboard style. We have also made adding items to favorites drop dead easy. Simply touch and hold the media item till the pop up asks you to add it to favorites.

Bookmarks:

There are many cases where you just love a specific part of a song or podcast and always want instant access to it. Sometimes you always want to start a song at a specific point. You can now do this with Bookmarks, saving you from always rewinding and fast forwading.

Quick Add and Search:

Right now, adding to the “On-The-Go” playlist is clumsy and time consuming. We have solved this by allowing you to simply touch the media item till the “Add to On-The-Go” pops up for you to immediately add it. In addition, you can now access search faster by simply touching the top bar on any of the iPod screens.

Song Info:

Get all the info you have always wanted to know about the song and artist. Utlizing the power of the web, you can now get access to the lyrics, music video, and full knowledge about the artist currently playing.

iRemix can be found on Cydia for $4.99.

The developer behind this tweak is called Aaron Ash and is the same person who brought us Multifl0w.

Description:

You can get the application for free on Cydia.

The original guide was posted by Neokjames and was edited by psp2468.

For this guide you are going to need to either be able to access your device’s filesystem using iPhoneFolder or have iFile installed on your device. iFile can be installed from the Cydia Store and costs $5.00.

Using iPhoneFolder:

1. Navigate to the /Applications/Cydia.app/ folder on your device and backup the package.js file onto your computer.
2. Open up the original package.js file and search for this: var depiction = package.depiction;
   (It is quite far down, 208th line.)
3. Change it to say: var depiction = null;
4. Save the file and the adverts on Cydia should no longer appear.

If something goes wrong like Cydia does not open, it means you made an error in editing the file. Simply place the back up of the package.js file back onto your device and start all over again.

Using iFile:

1. Navigate to the /Applications/Cydia.app/ folder on your device and copy the package.js file and paste is somewhere where you will find it again as a backup.
2. Open the original package.js and click edit.
3. Scroll down until you see this: var depiction = package.depiction;
4. Edit it to say: var depiction = null;
5. Save the file and adverts should no longer appear on Cydia.

Undo:

If you would like to undo this, simply copy the back up of the package.js file back onto your device.

There are actually two fixes for this. The first depends on you having installed AP7 on your device. If you have that, you can simply enter these commands into MobileTerminal and you should be OK.

• Su root (Enter)
• *Your password* (Enter – most likely alpine if you haven’t changed it)
• apt-get update

This command will update your lists and therefore opening Cydia should not be a problem any longer.

For the people who have NOT got AP7 installed, check all the instructions on how to fix on this page. Make sure you look at the ones in the comments as well because they seem to work the best.

You must also remove the Zodttd source or else this problem will happen again. Remove it by going into the Manage tab on Cydia, clicking sources, clicking Edit and then deleting the Zodttd source.

As I have bought the emulator through the service, I can tell you first hand that it is not good at least not at the moment. I cannot update the emulator for whatever reason. It wants me to pay it again to update it.

However I suppose that this problem could be a result of it being just released so I will give it some time to sort itself out but it is still disappointing.

On a post on iPhone Enthusiasts, Saurik has posted his opinion on Appsidy and the fact that Appsidy is owned by the same people who created the Rock application. Here are Saurik’s comments:

Comment 1:

(For the record, Appsidy == Rock == IntelliBorn: they are all the same people operating under different names.)

For a user, Appsidy’s “no refunds” policy is quite damning . Also, most of the people using PayPal are overseas, and the currency conversion costs drastically outweigh the current $0.25 fee I charge (which I’ve actually been working with my PayPal representative to fix).

If you are in the US I encourage you to use Amazon, which not only provides a mobile-formatted checkout process but also is integrated into Cydia in a way that lets me save your payment information in a manner similar to that claimed by Rock.

A representive of Appsidy’s response:

The Paypal international currency conversion fee is 2.5%. Thus, only on sales of $10 or more would it equate (only one app is in your store is over $10). So unfortunately, the Cydia Store is “drastically” charging users unjustified additional fees. Also, if it were to address the conversion rate, why wouldn’t it be a percent of the sale? And what about US users – why are they charged the $0.25? Obviously, the Cydia Store is charging additional fees separate from the cost to:
- A) Say the price is one amount, but really checkout with a greater cost.
- B) Increase the percentage Cydia store takes from the developer, but behind their back. This is very poor practice to devs and customers.

Apple does over $1 billion in sales with a no refund policy. We think the community understands what they’re getting into when they buy an app for $1 and risk not liking it .

With Paypal’s 2.4+ billion in sales, we think users have clearly made a statement of which payment processor they prefer. Who’s heard of Amazon Payments?

A great feature of Appsidy, is that users can also use their RockID – so regardless of where you purchase your item, you can install inside Rock and Cydia. Also – there have been many complaints of users returning phones and the Cydia store not allowing them to download. We have an automated built-in device transfers – so you don’t have to worry about this or contact someone and wait for a response. And you don’t have to wait 2+ weeks to get a response from us (typically < 48 hours).

Finally, yes – the founder of the companies is the same person – but each company offers different value and services.

We think there’s room for competition in the jailbroken community – and we hope to improve user experience and overall jailbroken community satisfaction through your feedback. Thanks Jay for your help and feedback!

Saurik’s reponse:

A) What I just explained is that the $0.25 is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the conversion costs, not that it /is/ somehow the conversion costs. I could do the math out for you on the Amazon micropayments vs. PayPal rates, but you can also do that and see that $0.25 is fair. The point is that I have never once gotten a complain regarding the $0.25 ;P. What I am working with PayPal on is figuring out how to determine what payments have to go through a micropayments account which which ones don’t, in order to get similar rates.

(This price is also upfront to the user, which you claim it isn’t: it is very obvious that this cost is applied before you even choose a purchasing agent.)

B) The Cydia Store license transfer system is automated for the first four devices. After that you need to talk to someone. That means that it is already better than the Rock license transfer system, even before you have to speak to someone. Also, as of two weeks ago, the mechanism was tweaked to mean that users probably never have to e-mail me no matter how many devices they want to get on their account, as there is now a time-weighted mechanism for handling the linkages.

C) As for Amazon Payments, anyone who has ever bought anything from Amazon has an Amazon account. In the US for online purchasers that is an insane percentage. If you actually look at the rates of usages of Amazon Payments vs. PayPal in Cydia you see about 45% of users happily using Amazon Payments.

D) I am fine with competition, and never stated otherwise. However, I will take this opportunity to say that competition should be handled in a way that is open, honest, and transparent. Even this person doesn’t know who the players involved are here, and nearly all of your statements in this last followup are incorrect.

Have you had a bad experience with Appsidy?

This has been an idea that I have seen circulating on forums for a while now but up until now, the idea never came to fruition. But finally, two iPhone developers by the names of Peleaz-1 and Cstsxyfry212 have gone ahead and created a great application called iClassic that is going to be released onto the Cydia store in a matter of days.

Some of you may have noticed that the promo image says ‘Available on the AppStore (Coming Soon)’ but Apple’s strict rules and regulations didn’t allow the application in so instead of giving it up, they decided to release it onto the Cydia Store.

However, the developers were kind enough to let AllTechRelated try out a pre-release of the application so we could share our thoughts on it with our readers.

What is it?

iClassic is basically an iPod Classic emulator for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It simulates everything from the menus, the click-wheel and even the music player. It is impressive how well they have managed to capture the essence of the iPod Classic and bring it to the touch screen iPhone and iPod Touch.

Simply put, iClassic is an alternative way of listening to your music on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Music only. No videos or podcasts (yet!).

The root menu of iClassic has the following menus to click on:

• Now Playing
• Playlists
• Artists
• Albums
• Songs
• Settings

This is essentially the same menu as in the ‘Music’ menu on the iPod Classic.

Once you click on the Artists button using the button in the middle of the click-wheel you come to the familiar list of artists of all your music. The scrolling is done using the click-wheel like on the iPod Classic. The scrolling itself is a bit jumping as the touchscreen is not as refined as a real click-wheel but it is definitely usable. However the switching between scrolling up and down is flawless and dispite the  few jumps in it, it is a very pleasurable way to browse through your music.

It is also slightly easier to ‘miss’ the onscreen click-wheel if you do not look when you scroll unlike on the iPod Classic because of the difference in texture between the click-wheel and actual iPod. However this is impossible to change so the problem is almost not worth mentioning.

On the top of the screen, like on the real iPod Classic, there is the status bar which contains the battery and the name of the menu you are accessing/time (they rotate between).The blue play button also appears when a song is playing in the background but the pause button was not included in this version.

Once you have chosen which artist you want to listen to, you enter the artists sub-menu. Here there is the usual list of albums that this artist has created and the top button saying ‘All Albums’. Clicking on of these buttons will bring you to a list of the songs in this album. Also, the shuffle button has been included in this menu.

When the song has been chosen you enter the all-important music player which looks more or less identical to that of the iPod Classics. In fact, minus the lack of progress bar for the song, they do look identical. Do not worry though. The lack of progress bar has been noticed by the developer and he is working on including it in the final version.

The music player shows the album art, album name, artist and song name as it should. It also includes the number of songs in the album you are listening to and does show the duration of the song and how far into the song you are at. Clicking the middle button allows you to scroll using the click-wheel through the song. However again, there is no progress bar but the time of the song can be used to deduce where you are in the song.

iClassic also has Playlists included in it. It simply takes the playlist from your iPod.app and uses it in the iPod Classic way. Again, the shuffle button appears above all the songs. No inclusion of Genius playlists just yet.

Settings:

In the root menu of iClassic is the settings button. This is not done in the iPod Classic style but in the typical iPhone OS style. The Settings offers different options to customize iClassic to your needs. Here is a summary of all the options available:

• UI Options: In this section you can change two different things:
  1. Change the colour of your ‘iPod Classic’ between Black or Silver.
  2. Change the status bar from Shiny to Matte.
• Music Options: This section is where you can turn on shuffle and repeat. Sadly this is lacking in the actual music player window and is a bit of hassle to come and change it when in the middle of a song.
• Application Options: In this section you can do the following things:
  1. Vibration on/off: This is a vibration that happens every time you click on the middle button. I am thankful for the ability to turn it off because quite simply I find it a bit irritating. I supposed the developer is probably using it as a warning for when you accidentally click the button but for me, it wil remain off.
  2. Shake to shuffle: Here you can turn off and on shake to shuffle.

A great point in my opinion about this is that it still uses the iPhone’s or iPod Touch’s musicplayer in the background so that if you play a song with iClassic, the song is also playing on iPod.app. This allows applications such as Scrobbl (scrobble your songs to Last.fm) to be used.

Conclusion:

I think the application has a few fault but that needn’t overshadow the fact that this is a great idea inside a great application. This is a GREAT application for users who miss their old iPods or a new iPhone users who aren’t yet comfortable with using the touchscreen or simply don’t like the iPhone musicplayer’s UI.

I love this application as I love the iPod Classic. As mine broke two weeks ago, this is a great replacement (until I get it repaired of course ) I am already starting to think of ways to integrate the application into my theme to replace the iPod.app as my #1 music player.

The application will be available on the Cydia store for $1.99 as soon as it is accepted into BigBoss’s repo (which soon be in a few days).

Peleaz-1’s website.

The emulator can be downloaded through Cydia on the Zodttd & Macciti source that should already be on your device.

This has been a long time coming, but my schedule is just now starting to free up. I have updated psx4iphone to also support the 3.1.x series of firmwares. Included in psx4iphone v1.1.0 is a fix for a bug causing the non-scaled landscape screen to display properly.

Don’t expect too much difference in performance. This emulator will still require an iPhone 3gs or iPod Touch 3rd Gen to really shine. I will be working more on this emulator as I get more free time.

You can download psx4iphone from the ZodTTD Repo which is built-in to Cydia via the included community sources package. This means it is also available via RockApp, Icy, etc. Brief installation instructions are provided within the package info.

If you run into any issues with psx4iphone v1.1.0 feel free to ask for support via the comments. Just remember, don’t ask for ROMs/ISOs or where to get the BIOS.

Via